


Election Season

by ogidni



Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Dick Grayson is Nightwing, Gang Rape, Jason Todd is Red Hood, M/M, Robin bonding, Tim Drake is Robin, a bit dark, but happy ending, lotta plot, politics discussions
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-10
Updated: 2017-09-17
Packaged: 2018-12-26 06:12:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,687
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12053004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ogidni/pseuds/ogidni
Summary: As Gotham nears election day, Batman and Robin investigate evidence that the race is fixed. Robin gets in over his head.





	1. one

**Author's Note:**

> hello and welcome! i'm a fan of batman and municipal politics, so here you go. i hope you enjoy this. tim is my fave. i'm forcing wolftrap, the other user on this account, to write this with me, though she's far far from the bat addict i am. thank you for reading! please comment and let me know what you think. :)

Cool autumn sunlight rouses Tim from a pleasant dream, a kaleidoscope of images from the party the night before. Alfred outdid himself this time: dimmed chandeliers and candelabras lining the banquet tables; birch branch centerpieces casting spidery shadows throughout the great hall. The Gotham chapter of the American Cerebral Palsy Action Network had to have its fall gala somewhere, and Tim figures it’s just as well that Bruce offered to host. Going to some museum or gallery or other mansion would just mean more time in a tux.

 

It feels good to awake from sleep in the morning. His circadian rhythm has been so out of whack for so long he’s almost forgotten what it’s like to wake to life and noise and light, not silence and business. He steps into sweatpants and tugs on a Brentwood t-shirt.

 

Tim emerges, yawning; Bruce’s door is still closed, which surprises him only vaguely.

 

When they host, they shut off access to the living quarters; unassuming hallway doors with no visible locks feature retina scanning panels, if you know how to access them. Every member of the family uses a different finger to prompt the scan: Bruce’s index, Dick’s thumb, the obvious finger for Jason, and a ring finger for Tim. There had been a minor argument over reinstating Jason’s access when he showed back up, risen hell; Bruce and Dick had fought, and Tim had stayed out of it. Dick had prevailed. Jason got his access back. But he still doesn’t come around.

 

Which is fine by Tim, who prefers tranquility to upset, all things considered. He makes his way downstairs, where maids are still restoring the great hall to its former order, and greets Alfred in the kitchen.

 

He’s hardly ever seen the old man out of his jacket, much less his waistcoat. Yet there he is, bent over the kitchen sink in just his impeccably pressed button-down, sleeves rolled up, scrubbing dishes.

 

Tim quirks a brow.

 

“Shouldn’t the caterers do that?”

 

“They did,” Alfred answers crisply. “But not to my satisfaction.”

 

“Ah.”

 

Tim browses the fridge for something easy, which won’t put Alfred in the position of dealing with anymore dishes unsatisfactorily washed.

 

“Thought the party went well,” he remarks, settling on cereal.

 

“Master Bruce seemed pleased.”

 

Thinking back on the evening, Tim can’t really remember seeing much of Bruce. 

 

“Must’ve been working the crowd. I barely saw him.” He turns, bowl in hand, to lean against the counter. 

 

“He did appear to have business to attend to,” Alfred murmurs, and Tim wonders at his meaning for a drowsy, interminably long moment, and as he puzzles it out, a shape appears in his field of vision that he can’t seem to process.

 

“Hi,” he finally yelps. Alfred turns. 

 

The girl wearing Bruce’s bathrobe smiles.

 

“Hi, I, um,” she says.

 

“Good morning, miss,” Alfred answers, ever on cue, “may I offer you coffee or tea?”

 

“Coffee would be great,” she says, all nervous gratitude, and sits at the kitchen table, crossing and uncrossing her legs. Alfred bustles about, and Tim thinks it would be weird to keep standing here, eating cereal, without saying anything. He also thinks it would be even weirder to just leave, or to say something. And so he is paralyzed.

 

“Thanks,” he hears her say. Alfred returns resolutely to his dishes. A few more beats of dead air and Tim cautiously takes another bite of cereal, now disintegrating into sugary mush.

 

“So,” she says, softly, imploringly; she’s decided to be the one to address this bizarre situation, and Tim halfway respects her for it. “You must be....Bruce’s….”

 

“Son?” Tim supplies.

 

“Oh —”

 

“No —”

 

“No, no —”

 

“—Adopted,” Tim explains, now fully flustered, “my parents died. Bruce and orphans,” he makes some gesture with his spoon, not entirely sure what he’s getting at.

 

She’s silent for a moment, staring into her coffee. Probably people don’t talk often with her about their dead parents, Tim thinks.

 

“I’m so sorry to hear that,” she finally comes up with.

 

“It’s okay,” Tim says, “I’m Tim.” He clips the statement too short to add on something like  _ by the way,  _ and while he’s contemplating the fact that he made it sound like it’s alright his parents have died  _ because  _ he’s Tim, Bruce appears in the kitchen doorway, in unremarkable pajama pants and the undershirt he must’ve been wearing the night before.

 

“Hey, you,” he says to the woman, in his charming Bruce Wayne cadence. Tim discreetly pours the rest of his cereal down the sink drain. 

 

“Morning,” she breaks into a sunny smile gazing up at him. “I was just getting to know Tim.” 

 

He and Bruce make eye contact briefly, and Tim is almost certain he’s done something wrong, broken not a rule but some piece of etiquette. But Bruce doesn’t stop him when he mumbles something and retreats up the servants’ staircase to the second floor. 

 

\----

 

They’ll be patrolling tonight, so it makes sense to sleep, so it makes sense to jerk off, is how Tim’s reasoning goes. A couple of orgasms and he’ll be unwound enough to get a little rest before they suit up and head out. 

 

He lays on his bed and stares at the ceiling. In Dick’s room, there are plastic stars glued to the ceiling, which used to glow in the dark. Jason’s old walls still have posters on them, rock stars and art house flicks — good ones in each case. Tim came here a little more fully formed. His walls are blank but for a whiteboard and bulletin board, both used mainly for scheduling. Everything else is online.

 

Including his porn, which he considers perusing, but he feels leaden, weighted to the bed. Dick had old issues of  _ Playboy _ stashed between his mattress and box spring. Jason had a PO box subscription to  _ Hustler _ . Bruce is having sex, right now.

 

Tim turns the thought over in his mind.

 

_ Bruce is having sex right now.  _

 

He’s not certain, to be fair. But he imagines they went up for round two. And how, exactly, does Batman fuck?

 

Tim snorts a laugh, but he gets hard, too; and when he comes, it’s so intense and urgent it leaves him dizzy and temporarily blind and aching just a little.

 

\---

 

“We’ve received a tip,” Bruce says as Tim arrives at the central console in the Cave, a few minutes after sundown. 

 

“What’s up?” 

 

He hasn’t suited up yet; neither has Bruce, who must’ve been working out only a little while ago. He sits at attention at the computer, reading. 

 

“An intern at Aegis Polling says two sets of data on Schwartz-Bateman race have been manipulated. Reported it to GCPD’s confidential tipline. Gordon forwarded it to us.” 

 

“Schwartz-Bateman?” Tim echoes, incredulous. “That’s the district attorney race, right?”

 

“Right.” 

 

Tim leans over his shoulder, squinting at the news article Bruce has pulled up. 

 

“Election’s in two weeks,” he murmurs, “what’s cooking the polls gonna do now?”

 

“It could prepare the press for an otherwise unlikely win,” Bruce points out. 

 

“Have you pulled Aegis’ financials?” 

 

“Working on it now.” 

 

It takes time. Tim rolls up another chair to the console and offers helpful hacking suggestions in a low, neutral tone when Bruce seems stumped. When they work, and they do work, Bruce gives a pleased hum, and warmth spreads inside Tim in a rush that makes him shift in place.

 

At last, Bruce unearths a record of recent Aegis deposits, all of which seem explicable except a sizeable payment in the six figures from January Investment Corps, which neither Tim nor Bruce have heard of, which raises reasonable suspicion that —

 

“It’s a front,” Tim declares simply. “Has to be. Check their taxes.”

 

January’s tax filings list their offices in Old Town, not a good sign for an investment firm. 

 

“We’ll take a look when we’re out tonight,” Bruce decides. “Record the address.” 

 

And he’s up just like that, virtually soundless, his chair doesn’t even spin. Tim slides over into it and starts up a casefile, logging the tip and the financials and the tax filings and the Old Town address they’ll be stopping by later tonight. 

 

By the creak of flexing leather gloves, Tim knows Bruce is almost finished suiting up, and that he’ll be impatient if Tim lags. So he saves the casefile and gets dressed.

 

\---

 

Gotham flashes by in fluorescent orange and neon, casting strange shadows across the interior of the car. Tim finds himself uneasy with their silence. Usually, it’s commonplace and companionable, a calm, centering prelude to a night’s work. But tonight Tim is restless, distracted by intrusive thoughts. 

 

“Have you been following the race?” he blurts, apropos of nothing.

 

“The race?” Bruce doesn’t turn his head, and he doesn’t sound troubled, which pisses Tim off, only mildly. 

 

“Schwartz versus Bateman,” Tim clarifies. 

 

“Not closely. Why?”

 

“Just wondering,” he returns, fidgeting with his utility belt. “I guess my money is on Bateman, y’know, tough-on-crime. I like Schwartz, I mean, I like his approach to rehabilitation and treatment. But that doesn’t seem to go over so well around here.”

 

Bruce listens patiently, eyes on the road.

 

“I don’t put much stock in politicians,” he says at last, easy and measured. “They’re all corrupt, or at least, available for corruption. In Gotham, anyway.”

 

“Do you ever donate? I mean, not around here. But, uh, to state campaigns or — federal?”

 

“I donate to charities, not politicians. Though, it doesn’t stop them from asking for meetings nonstop, especially this time of year. Your money is yours to do with what you will, but I would advise you to stay out of politics. Our mission requires neutrality. Partisanship can get in the way.”

 

“I’m not a  _ partisan, _ ” Tim nearly snaps.

 

“Only a word of caution.” 

 

There’s a hint of amusement in Bruce’s voice, which only makes Tim feel more inordinately cross. They lapse back into silence.

 

“That girl this morning…” Tim cuts in after a long moment.

 

Bruce doesn’t reply.

 

“I told her I was your son.”

 

“Right.”

 

Another long beat of wordless quiet.

 

“I guess I didn’t know what to say.”

 

“It wasn’t an issue.”

 

“She was pretty hot.”

 

_ Now  _ Bruce looks at him, a brief, startled glance, and then his fingers tighten on the wheel and he stares intently back at the freeway. 

 

“It’s part of the act,” Bruce says carefully, agitation creeping into his tone. Tim is proud of himself, in a petty, childish way, for having provoked him. They take the exit to Old Town, and Bruce perks up, on the lookout for an alleyway to park in. 

 

“Long way to go for an act,” Tim mutters. “Are you dating her?”

 

“No. Tim?”

 

“I don’t need the men-have-needs talk, if that’s what you’re getting at.”

 

They’ve come to a stop, so Tim opens his door, flushed under his domino and ready to punctuate this disaster of a conversation he’s gotten himself into. But Bruce grabs him by the cape and yanks him sternly back down into his seat.

 

“Are you good to work tonight?”

 

“What? Of course,” Tim huffs. 

 

“What’s gotten into you?”

 

“Nothing — nothing’s gotten into me. This morning just caught me off guard.” 

 

“I need you to focus.”

 

“I am focused.”

 

Bruce lets go of his cape, and Tim sweeps out of the car, tugging it around him. It must be about fifty degrees, if that; Gotham in late October tends toward the frigid. But Tim is all sweat underneath his suit, and it takes an hour or so for his heart to slow back down to normal.

 

\---

 

They stop a mugging between a vacant church and a gas station on the corner of 36th and Adams Ave. It probably wouldn’t have gone all that badly even if they hadn’t intervened, but Batman doesn’t discriminate by severity. It’s about the injustice of it, not the consequences.

 

Now Batman is forging ahead, navigating over rooftops in the darkness by his internal map of Gotham. Tim follows close behind in his wake, nimble and surer than he used to be. Not like Dick — who ever has moved like Dick? — but calculated and careful. He pushes off a gargoyle with the ball of his foot and rises up onto an office block’s flat top, breathing steam into the icy air. Batman has stopped up ahead.

 

“This is it,” he murmurs, “Let’s case it.” He stops Tim with a paternal hand on his shoulder just before he starts his descent. “Be careful,” he advises. Tim nods, and they make their way down.

 

The front of the place is mostly boarded up. A property manager has placed a FOR LEASE sign in one of the windows, but the contact number has been torn off. 

 

Batman gestures for him to check the front doors and he does; both are locked, likely with a chain and padlock, from inside. Tim produces a pin light from his utility belt and peers into the slight gap, spotting a chain link in the narrow space, just as he suspected.

 

“It’s chained,” he tells Batman, who waves him aside, tests its strength with a gentle push, then steps back to kick it in. 

 

The chain doesn’t break, but the opposite door handle it’s looped around snaps off the brittle aluminum like nothing. Batman shoulders inside, and Tim follows.

 

There must’ve been carpet once, but it’s been chewed down to the concrete by rats now. Papers litter the floor, yellowed and curled, and there were perhaps old desktop computers in some of the ransacked cubicles, but they’ve been picked clean now, office furniture overturned. Dust lingers in the air, an inch thick on every surface.

 

Batman advances to a desk and eases a drawer open carefully; the groan of the metal still stirs a few mice. Inside there are file folders, and he begins to browse through them, searching for legible copy. Finally he finds what appears to be an invoice, and on it, the name of the employee’s company.

 

_ Janus Cosmetics.  _

 

He waves Tim over. 

 

“Black Mask,” he whispers, and Batman nods. 

 

“Sionis’ old headquarters.”

 

“Since when is he involved in municipal politics?” 

 

“We’ll have to find out.” 

 

Batman conceals the old invoice in a utility pocket, and the two of them sweep the lower floor, finding no signs of life. They exit through a backdoor into an alley, and work Old Town for the remainder of the night.

 

\---

 

Tim is drowsy on the ride home, his thoughts indirect and drifting. 

 

“Was Dick ever political?” he asks lightly.

 

“Not that I know of,” Bruce says. “Jason had certain,” he shifts gears as they come near the end of their stint on the freeway, “opinions about the order of things. But Dick…”

 

He hadn’t spoken so freely of Jason — especially not his name — before he had come back. 

 

“Opinions about the order of things?”

 

“About poverty and wealth,” Bruce clarifies. Tim can hear the five-o-clock shadow in his voice.

 

“What, he thought the government should even things out?”  _ Interesting,  _ Tim thinks,  _ Jason is a Marxist. _

 

“No, I think he planned to do that himself.”

 

“Ah. Authority problems.”

 

“Correct.” 

 

“Does Dick...vote?”

 

“You’ll have to ask him,” Bruce says, with that same edge of amusement from earlier which makes Tim feel patronized. He doesn’t object, though, this time; both of them seem to know he’s not talking about what’s really on his mind, and the euphemism he’s chosen is an odd one.

 

In the cave, Tim logs the night’s findings while Bruce changes back into his civilian clothes. Tim hears the hiss of the shower, smells the steam and clinical tinge of soap, and persuades his sub-rational brain not to imagine Bruce showering only a few yards away. 

 

That can wait for later. When Bruce emerges still damp in sweats, Tim rises from the console and nods to the casefile. “We should log what you found on that old invoice,” he suggests, and Bruce agrees. 

 

“I’ll take care of it. Get some rest.”

 

“Thanks,” Tim says, and pauses just behind the console as Bruce takes his seat.

 

“No problem.” Bruce answers.

 

It’s a dismissal, Tim can tell. But he can’t protest it. He changes back into jeans and a t-shirt, just for the walk upstairs, and he doesn’t feel like exhales until he flops face-down onto his bed, without even the energy to hump his fist for a few measly minutes. This zipper will be hell on morning wood, so he kicks his jeans off and then burrows under the covers, willing himself to forgetful sleep as dawn breaks. 


	2. two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> chapter 2! chapter 3 soon. nothing extremely heavy in this one, that's all in next chap.

_ Dick, weird question _

 

_ shoot _

 

_ Do you vote? _

 

_ huh? _

 

_ Like in elections. Mayor? _

 

_ yeah sometimes. aren’t u too young to vote? :p _

 

_ Yeah. But you’re never too  young to care about politics. _

 

_ lol i guess. U doing anything fun for halloween? _

 

_ Probably not. Just working. _

 

_ aww that sucks. lets hang out soon!!! _

 

_ Anytime! _

 

\---

 

So Dick really  _ isn’t  _ political, Tim decides. Of course he votes; voting is a civic duty. But there’s voting and then there’s getting into the thick of it, following the pundits and the headlines and the polls, and Tim does a little more of all of that than he’d like to admit. When Bruce nailed him as a partisan, he wasn’t entirely wrong: Tim  _ has  _ spent some serious time arguing over Schwartz’s merits versus Bateman’s in the comments section of The Gotham Gazette. 

 

Schwartz believes in rehabilitation — he was a public defender, after all. And for every certified creep and gangster they throw in Arkham or Blackgate, Tim knows there’s another one-time offender getting a bum rap for nothing but possession or minor burglary. It’s just how the system works: As long as the papers report  _ somebody  _ getting locked up for fifteen to twenty, the tax-paying citizens of Gotham feel satisfied that something is being done about the city’s crime problem. 

 

It’s the run of things. Tim hates it, and Bateman will just be more of the same, because Gotham politics is mostly showbiz, and Bateman is willing to put on the show. 

 

“But being a  _ partisan  _ is different,” Tim mutters to himself as he showers: The shower stall is where he wins all his best arguments, where he whips out the witty one-liners several days after the fact. “Partisanship isn’t rational, it’s about being — about thinking — about  _ not even thinking,  _ just…” 

 

On some level he can’t believe he’s still hashing this dumb argument out, and on another, he knows it isn’t about partisanship or politics or Gotham’s new district attorney; it’s about the fact that, seemingly regardless of how competent he is, Bruce still seems to consider him a kid. 

 

Which makes the chances of Bruce ever seeing him the way he wants to be seen — the way he increasingly  _ feels —  _ pretty minimal. 

 

Tim towels a circle of steam off the mirror, and appraises himself frankly. 

 

At this rate, he’ll never be as tall as either brother, much less Bruce. If he were a girl, he’d likely be classed as  _ petite,  _ but as it stands, there’s no polite euphemism for a small-boned, short guy. He’s proportional, he grants himself that; but all it means is that he has a long inseam for a man who’ll never break six feet. 

 

He’s lined all over with tight, lean muscle — not an ounce of fat, and for all the working out he does, he can’t seem to pack on bulk. Where Dick has tight pectorals threatening the integrity of his spandex, Tim has what he thinks of as chest-ribs; where Jason has perfect washboard abs, Tim has an expanse of pale stomach so flat and featureless even his navel is only a thin, unobtrusive dip. He and Bruce might as well be different species, their statures are so different, and though he’s never  _ seen  _ Bruce’s penis, he can judge by the relative differences in their suits’ cups that they’re likely barely comparable. 

 

It’s not a heartening thought, but he gets half-hard anyway.

 

**\---**

 

“Does the name  _ Donny Fentonte  _ ring any bells?” 

 

Bruce’s voice reaches him before he’s in the cave proper. Tim considers the name. 

 

“Yeah,” he answers slowly, approaching the central console where Bruce is stationed. “Psycho hitman we put away last year, right? He had a knife thing.”

 

“That’s him,” Bruce confirms. “Still awaiting trial. He was so unhinged the Falcones didn’t want anything to do with him.”

 

“But he had a pattern, right?” Tim slips down into the chair he’d rolled up to the console the day before. 

 

“Right. His last confirmed hit was a known associate of Sionis. I had assumed it was a rival gang. But I’m not sure. He’s the only criminal with any connection to Sionis still waiting on a conviction.”

 

“Did you run his MO through the database?”

 

“Mmhm,” Bruce replies, and with a click pulls up every similar homicide in Gotham over the last five years. 

 

Tim winces at the crime scene photos, splayed wide on the console’s broad screen. 

 

“That’s a lot of trouble to go to for a standard-issue hitman,” he deduces slowly, “Seems like he maybe shares Sionis’ proclivity for torture.”

 

“Seems like it.”

 

“Y’know, we  _ do  _ have a contact who might be able to shed some light on the relationship between Sionis and Fentonte…”

 

Bruce drums his fingers on the table’s edge.

 

“He won’t talk to me.”

 

“He talks to Dick.”

 

“But not to me. Maybe to you.”

 

The few times Tim and Jason have spoken, Jason has mostly called him  _ replacement  _ or  _ baby bird  _ or  _ you little fuck.  _ It hasn’t been cordial, to say the least, but then again there never is much venom behind Jason’s pejoratives, either. 

 

“I could try him,” Tim offers, uneasy.

 

Bruce nods, and doesn’t say anything else. Tim gazes at him, rapt. His lips part a little. Bruce seems to be on the verge of saying something, and Tim’s pulse builds in anticipation, waiting, waiting --

 

“Go on,” Bruce says, and Tim swallows.

 

“And do what?”

 

“...Call Jason.”

 

“Oh.”

 

“Right.”

 

Tim flushes deeply and leans over Bruce to pull up Jason’s comm link; sometimes he answers, sometimes he doesn’t. He has some kind of rapport with Barbara, Tim knows, and checks in with her from time to time for information. That won’t mean much once he figures out who’s calling. But it’ll at least make him likely to pick up the line.

 

There’s only static for a tense moment. Tim steels himself, and then Jason’s voice comes over the speaker, easy and smooth.

 

“Talk to me,” he says.

 

“Uh, hi,” Tim ventures.

 

“That you,  _ Robin _ ?” 

 

“Um, yeah. It’s me.”

 

“How’s puberty treating you?”

 

Tim scowls. “I, well, listen, is now a good a time?” 

 

“No. Whaddya want?”

 

“Does the name Donny Fentonte mean anything to you?”

 

“Yeah. Does it mean anything to  _ you _ ?”

 

Tim is caught off-guard. “Well, we’re trying -- I’m trying to figure out --”

 

“Uh-huh.  _ We.  _ That’s what I thought. You there, big guy? You like letting baby bird do your dirty work?”

 

Bruce clears his throat. “Good evening, Jason,” he says evenly, almost stern. “What do you know about Fentonte and Sionis?” 

 

“I know Fentonte is a serial killer who just happened to get into the right line of work. Do what you love, you know? And you’ll never work a day in your life. Last thing I heard, Sionis put a hit on a former right-hand man, and Fentonte took care of it, but got himself caught.” 

 

“So Fentonte is the kind of associate Sionis would want  _ out,”  _ Bruce concludes.

 

“He sure made use of his services when he was offering ‘em.” Jason is silent for a beat. “Why? Is Sionis trying to bust him out?” 

 

Bruce reaches down to shut off the line, but Tim stops him, gently catching his wrist. They make wordless eye contact.  _ This is why he doesn’t talk to you,  _ Tim urges silently.

 

“We don’t know,” Tim answers. “Maybe. We’re trying to figure out what’s going on. Will you let us know if you hear anything?” 

 

“Yeah,” Jason snorts. “You bet.”

 

And the line goes dead.

 

\---

 

“So if Sionis wants Fentonte out...It’d be helpful to have a corrupt DA in place. But — why Schwartz?”

 

“Nobody would blink an eye if a candidate who ran on amnesty —”

 

“- _ rehabilitation—” _

 

“—let a criminal go.” 

 

Tim frowns as he seals his domino in place. “Sionis must have something on him. Schwartz isn’t crooked. It’s gotta be blackmail.”

 

“Not a bad hypothesis,” Bruce admits. “How do we check it out?”

 

Tim contemplates as Bruce dons the cowl, and follows him into the car.

 

“You said politicians are always calling you asking to meet up. Why don’t you invite yourself over to his place for dinner, and I’ll sweep his place while you’ve got him distracted?”

 

“What exactly will you be looking for?” Batman starts the ignition and Tim watches the twist in his gauntlet — remembers holding his wrist, too thick to encircle with one hand, earlier that evening.

 

“Well, if he’s being blackmailed, he must be corresponding with somebody working for Sionis. Could check for appointments, emails, calls, texts…”

 

Batman considers.

 

“I’ll have my secretary call his handlers,” he decides, “but —”

 

“—You have a secretary?”

 

“Executives typically do.”

 

“Is she hot?” 

 

Tim has no explanation for what’s just come over him, other than a hormone-fueled burst in his imagination, blooming into visions of Bruce pounding some pencil-skirted minx over his desk. He shifts in his seat, swallowing thickly.

 

“She’s elderly,” Batman answers in a curiously wry tone.

 

Tim’s mouth snaps shut and he can’t believe he hasn’t been reprimanded. Maybe, he surmises, Batman went through this with Jason and Dick; maybe puberty treated thim as harshly as it’s treating Tim. Maybe.

 

\---

 

Around three am, several hours shy of the late autumn dawn, there’s a disturbance at the county jail. A breakout, Batman thinks, based on his scanner. They drop their case of a coke dealer’s rendezvous spot at the docks and make their way to the jail. 

 

A blockade of squad cars, lights flashing, bar entry from the street; they wind up scaling the fence and nearing the gaggle of gathered officers, silent as shadows. 

 

As Batman approaches a senior officer, a commotion at the rear of the building draws their attention. An emergency medical crew is wheeling out someone — what was  _ formerly  _ someone — on a gurney, mostly soaked in blood. 

 

“Sounds like somebody got in presenting themselves as a member of the night custodian crew,” Tim hears the officer explain to Batman. “Fake credentials, everything. Got around one of the cell blocks and pulled a gloc on an inmate, shot him right in the head.”

 

“Do you know the inmate’s identity?”

 

The officer doesn’t, but Tim is already nearing the ambulance, where the techs are making little haste: The situation is what it is, and there’s nothing they can do now but record time of death.

 

“Do you have an ID for him?” Robin asks.

 

“Cellie said the name was  _ Fentonte, _ ” one tech replies off-handedly, and Tim’s blood runs cold as ice. 

 

By the time he arrives back at Batman’s side, he already knows. They take statements from witnesses, including Fentonte’s former cellmate, and help the officers secure the jail again. They even make some half-hearted effort at pursuing the assailant, who escaped northbound in a featureless red mask, as though they don’t know exactly who he is.

 

\---

 

“I’m sorry,” Tim says, hoarse from the cold, as soon as they’re back in the cave. Bruce is walking away from him. “I’m sorry,” he tries again. “I shouldn’t have told Jason what we were working on.”

 

“No,” Bruce says sharply, “you shouldn’t have.” 

 

“What do we do now?”

 

Bruce is already stiffly seated at the main console, preparing the night’s report. 

 

“The objective hasn’t changed.” 

 

“But if Fentonte is dead —”

 

“He  _ is  _ dead,” Bruce cuts in, “and for our purposes, it doesn’t matter. If Sionis is fixing the election, that’s subverting the will of the people. And if Schwartz is being blackmailed, he’s corrupt, and not fit to serve. The objective hasn’t changed.”

 

“But —”

 

“No. Let this serve as an object lesson in handling sensitive information.” 

 

“I didn’t think Jason would — I mean, he’s still…”

 

“Jason is very forthright about his methods. You’ve been distracted lately, Tim. I’m not sure by what. Girls?”

 

For a moment, Tim is dumbfounded, humiliation and outrage warring in him for expression. 

 

“ _ Me _ ? Distracted by  _ girls _ ? You — you brought a stranger into the living quarters, you —”

 

“Part of the performance, Tim,  _ not  _ a careless mistake. As I explained the  _ last  _ time you broached this subject.”

 

“That’s the thing, though, right? When I make a mistake, it’s carelessness, or immaturity, or — or something. But when you do something risky, it’s just — it’s just calculated, it’s part of the ‘act’, it’s…”

 

“You have an alternative theory?”

 

“You just — everyone has sex for the same reasons; it’s not some thought-out thing, it’s…”

 

Tim can’t place Bruce’s emotion. He’s pissed off — hates being argued with; his way or the highway — but there’s something else, a dark and conflicted emotion that turns his gaze piercing, accusatory. 

 

“No, Tim,” he says, “you’re wrong. And that’s enough.” 

 

He doesn’t wait to be dismissed further, and stalks stiffly up the stairs, breaking into a run only when he emerges back into the manor.

 


	3. three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Graphic violence and a rape scene, be forewarned

Over the next couple of days Bruce and Tim fall into an uneasy truce, avoiding one another when they can, speaking little and of nothing when they can’t. It’s a fragile peace. Tim isn’t sure it will last, and he obsesses over their conversation in every quiet moment. He doesn’t invest much energy in waiting on Bruce to signal that all is well: One could suffocate holding their breath in anticipation of Bruce uttering a kind word.

 

But there is still work to be done. There is always work to be done. Bruce’s dinner with Schwartz falls on October 31st (not like Tim had Halloween plans anyway) and Tim spends the day in eager anticipation, reviewing blueprints of Schwartz’s Cathedral Square brownstone and memorizing its layout between meditation sessions. He’s going to find out what Sionis has on Schwartz, he tells himself, and they’re going to clear this up.

 

It’s strange not having Bruce in the principal role. He seems to feel the same, drilling Tim on the mission plan and objectives over and over, rehearsing every known detail about Schwartz and Sionis with him until the words seemed to lose meaning to repetition. 

 

Bruce is due for dinner at eight. Tim finds himself lingering around his door at seven, a little unmoored by a night that doesn’t begin with that almost-ceremonial masking in the cave. Here, through the slightly open door, he feels he is watching Bruce don a mask of another kind.

 

“You can come in,” Bruce says lightly. Tim doesn’t startle; of course Bruce knew he was there. 

 

Tim sheepishly slinks inside. Bruce is standing before his full-length mirror, working in a pair of pewter cufflinks. He eyes Tim curiously over his shoulder.

 

“What sort of a tie, do you think, with this?” he asks off-handedly.

 

Tim knows that Bruce’s ties, like his, are carefully rolled and stored point-up in an upper right bureau drawer; it’s a reliable Alfred-ism. He surveys Bruce’s suit for a moment — a nice slate grey, a little sheen, and my god, Tim thinks, how do people who think he’s just a well-meaning rich idiot get around how  _ big  _ he is? — and then turns his attention to his selection of ties.

 

“You could do blue,” Tim says neutrally, as though his mental reserve of masturbation material has no stake in this decision, “it would, uh, well it works with your eyes. Or there’s this grey one...some people do a kinda monochromatic thing, which can be nice.”

 

Bruce quirks a brow. “Who knew you had such style?”

 

“Yeah,” Tim laughs softly, “go figure, right?” 

 

When Bruce turns, only slightly, to gaze at Tim over his shoulder, the world seems to still. There is no low hum of air conditioning. Alfred is not preparing the car downstairs. Tim’s pulse is not pounding in his ears. For a wide, widening moment, Bruce looks at him like he’s seeing him for the first time. Understanding dawns in his eyes, and his mouth opens just a little. 

 

And then Alfred calls up the stairs that it’s time, Master Bruce, and Tim swallows and Bruce slips on his tie and pats him on the shoulder, just once, as he passes him by to leave the room.

 

\---

 

Ken Schwartz lives on Cathedral Square, a pricey little strip of real estate just proximate enough to the bay to be ‘on the water,’ and far enough away to be spared all the crime and general mayhem that coalesces around the docks. Looking at the fine exterior — fashionably weathered red brick and stone accents, French blue window shutters and gas-lamp porch lights — one would never guess the house was only a few blocks removed from the neon-lit downtown, buzzing and seething with life and noise.

 

Bruce knocks gently on the door. He has brought with him a bottle of red wine madly overpriced for a hostess gift, but that’s simply the sort of thing Bruce Wayne would do — absent-minded, well-meaning, filthy rich Bruce Wayne.

 

Mrs. Schwartz accepts the wine and gushes a greeting and invites him in, readily taking his coat and offering apologies for the (expertly cleaned) messy house in a bracing tempo. Bruce laughs her off. When Ken appears at the bottom of the stairs with their two well-scrubbed children, he shakes Bruce’s hand heartily and invites him into the dining room, where the nervous Mrs. Schwartz putters around and the kids sit stiffly in their places.

 

“Ken, how are you? How’d you get anything done with such a gorgeous woman around, huh?” 

 

Schwartz laughs nervously, too ecstatic. 

 

_ Money does that to people,  _ Bruce thinks.

 

It’s during the soup course that Bruce hears a  _ clunk _ upstairs, the kind of sound he’s trained himself to hear, just above the din of household noise. But neither Schwartz seems to notice.

 

“So, Mr. Wayne, what got you interested in politics?” Mrs. Schwartz asks. 

 

“Do you drive a Jaguar?” Schwartz’s son, somewhere on the order of ten years old, asks out of nowhere.

 

Bruce gives a jovial laugh. “ _ Sometimes,”  _ he admits, not untruthfully, “cars are certainly a lot more fun than politics, don’t you think?” 

 

“Yeah,” the kid agrees, and Mrs. Schwartz hushes him with another ladle of soup.

 

“Well,” Bruce then picks up, in reference to Schwartz’s question, “I’m interested in keeping the city safe. You know? Crime is just,” he appears to consider thoughtfully, and then goes on: “bad. Crime is just bad. It’s bad for business, it’s bad for customers. It’s bad for my employees. We’ve had tough-on-crime guys running Gotham for years now, and nothing’s changed. I figure it’s time to try something different.”

 

Schwartz is thrilled; Bruce can see it in his eyes, in his antsy sip of wine.

 

And when Schwartz launches into his pitch — “I think you’re  _ exactly  _ right, Bruce, I think you’re  _ absolutely  _ on the mark” — Bruce lets his mind wander. Tim must be upstairs right now, working diligently through Schwartz’s laptop. There may or may not be something there; the case for his blackmailing is fairly straightforward, but Bruce isn’t convinced Tim will believe it when he sees it. In several important respects, Tim is still very innocent: Certainly more so than Jason, perhaps even more so than Dick at his age. Bruce thinks he should preserve that for him as best he can, even in this line of work, even as Tim seems to be growingly aware of the attraction between them, even as he leans into it, intoxicated.

 

And Bruce is, too. But he is a man of principle, he reminds himself, as Mrs. Schwartz produces a filigree-engraved silver serving platter bearing a thick hump of roast beef. 

 

He is a man of principle.

 

\---

 

“Atta girl,” Tim encourages Schwartz’s laptop, a banged-up Dell, which has  _ almost  _ copied its entire contents onto the external hard drive he snuck in through the unlatched skylight in the upstairs bathroom. 

 

While the files have busily transferred themselves, Tim has efficiently picked through Schwartz’s email accounts, first his professional address — which yielded nothing — and then his private account, which turned up plenty to chew on. 

 

Schwartz has been corresponding with an email address under no name, just numbers; the anonymous agent has referred to  _ tapes,  _ and by the cowed, skittish way Schwartz has replied, Tim imagines they’re not the kind of tapes he’d want anybody seeing.

 

Now the only question is where Sionis’ goons have stashed the originals. Tim knows there’s no good way to get rid of tapes anymore; copies are so easily produced and so useful to blackmailers that any fraudster worth their salt will already have stashed a dozen digital copies in several different locations. But at least if they get ahold of the originals, they’ll know what they’re dealing with. 

 

An address catches Tim’s attention: The same building in Old Town he and Bruce had traced to Sionis’ old business before. It now strikes Tim as a serious oversight that they didn’t ransack the place the first time they stumbled upon it; it makes perfect sense to use somewhere seemingly abandoned as a rendezvous point and informal election fixing headquarters. It would be monumentally stupid to  _ stash  _ the originals there — but it seems pretty likely to Tim that, with a little more exploring, he can probably turn up some clues as to where they might be keeping them.

 

With Schwartz’s hard drive copied, Tim tucks the external into his utility belt and creeps silently out onto the top floor landing, straining his ears for traces of the conversation below. 

 

Schwartz is saying something, and his voice is tinnier and more nasal than it sounds in his radio ads. There’s a brief lull of sociable laughter, and then he hears Bruce’s voice, deep and rich and resonant. 

 

Tim figures he’s fucked up enough — said enough weird, untoward shit, made enough bad choices — for one lifetime as Robin. They need to get through this case, and then they’ll be on better footing, higher ground. He’ll head to Old Town, sweep the abandoned headquarters, and meet Bruce back at the cave after he finishes up here.

 

It’s the least he can do, he decides.

 

\---

 

Old Town is packed on Halloween night, since so many of the old warehouses have been renovated and made into clubs. The sidewalks are thick with revelers, some costumed, some not; heavy bass lines and the frantic thrum of electronica keep a steady tempo. It’s probably the only night of the year Tim could walk down the street in his Robin getup and not turn a single head, but he keeps to the alleys as a matter of procedure. 

 

He lets himself in through a sixth-story fire escape. Inside, the noise from the street is muted immensely; laughter dulls to a distant murmuring, and the music subsides to a dull pulse. The whole place smells of mold and dust and mildew. Some of the ceiling tiles have rotted and fallen in over the years, leaving exposed piping above and crumbling, moldering piles of plaster scattered over desks, chairs, empty hallways.

 

Graffiti marks some of the interior, now, and Tim can hear the hushed chittering of rats in the walls. He steps lightly over shattered fluorescent bulbs decaying in thick dust, and ducks underneath their torn-wire ballasts dangling from above. If anyone is using this place as a base of operations, Tim gathers, they aren’t using the sixth floor.

 

Condom wrappers and empty bottles litter the stairwell. Tim has to fish his flashlight out from his utility belt to make his way safely through the debris. There’s nothing on the fifth floor, or the fourth, third, second. He’s beginning to suspect he wasted his time.

 

The first floor is much as they left it. He can even identify the desk with the drawer Bruce lifted the invoice from, can remember the brittle yellowed paper in his broad, capable hands.

 

Through the mess of cubicles, Tim glimpses an unlit sign, half-torn down:  _ BSMT ACCESS.  _ Now  _ there,  _ he thinks, is the right spot for an illicit rendezvous spot. 

 

Tim shoulders the door open easily, with only a short, thin creak; the stairwell is thinner here, and darker. He lights his way down and feels along the wall for a row of switches, which he clumsily flips up, and to his surprise, a few flickering fluorescent bars blink to life above. It’s mostly storage down here, old stainless steel racks of office supplies, many of them emptied of their contents long ago. But there’s a dim blue glow emanating from the back corner, where a dilapidated desk is propped against the cement wall.

 

_ Score,  _ Tim grins.

 

Broken bulbs crunch under his feet as he makes his way to the desk, and though the computer is old — must be a Mac from the early aughts, he estimates — with a little fiddling, he’s able to get its data transferring onto his external. 

 

While the files copy, he takes another sweep through the basement, measuring and photographing shoe prints in the dust, lifting a few fresh-looking fingerprints from the stainless steel shelves. He’s squatting and peering with his flashlight into a floor-level shelf laden with (mostly) empty banker’s boxes when a commotion from upstairs startles him abruptly to his feet.

 

There are heavy footfalls and then the door at the base of the stairwell swings open, and a handful of men stream into the basement, talking amiably amongst themselves. They’re discussing their boss — none too favorably, Tim observes. He takes shelter behind an extruding corner of shelving and peers out, watching the meeting as it commences.

 

“Yeah, well, it’s a fuckin’ waste of time,” he hears one of them say. He sits on the edge of the desk bearing the computer Tim is currently pilfering a hard drive out of. 

 

“It’s a job,” one of them says, with a deep, sharp, clear voice. He sounds intelligent. “We’ll get it done, and we’ll get paid.” 

 

“Mask better come through with the cash,” another grumbles.

 

“He will,” the one with the resonant voice replies patiently. 

 

Tim wishes he had better access to his pin camera; a snap of their uncovered faces would no doubt turn up a rap sheet for each a mile long. He slides his hand along his belly to see if he can work it a little closer, but his glove catches the edge of the old shelves just slightly, producing the lightest rattle —

 

“The hell was that?”

 

He holds his breath. Maybe they won’t —

 

There’s a hand on his shoulder and he’s being yanked out into the flickering light. 

 

“Down here with your girlfriend, huh?” The gruff one gripping Tim’s shoulder grabs the edge of his domino mask and pulls  _ hard _ , tearing at the adhesive; Tim scrambles for his wrist and throws a punch which glances off his cheek, catching him by surprise. 

 

“Little bitch —”

 

Now his hand wraps vice-like around Tim’s neck, lifting him up, and the others are — laughing, now on their feet. 

 

He swings out and kicks the guy in the stomach and he drops him; once he’s on his feet, he’s darting for the door, but he stalls briefly at the thought of his external drive, still hooked in at the desk — another one of them snatches him and slams a knee into his balls, jabbing a fist into his nose when he doubles over, vision blurred, bile rising. Sionis’ goon rips his mask the rest of the way off, and Tim is dizzy as he’s shoved down onto his knees.

 

“Here’s a tip, kid,” the one with the clear voice is saying, and Tim thinks its his hand threading into his hair, “dressing up like Robin doesn’t make you Robin.”

 

_ What?  _ He thinks — blood trickles over his lip and stains his teeth as he realizes,  _ they think I’m dressed up as Robin for Halloween.  _ That’s how little of a fight he put up, how small of an impression he made —

 

His head is jerked back and up and as he spits blood at the one handling his jaw another one dips down with a butterfly knife to slice through the rubberized fabric of his utility belt, digging into his hip as he cuts. Tim grunts and the belt falls away but there’s no waistband there, like they probably expected, isn’t how this costume works; the one he spit at slaps him open-palmed and there’s a cock shoved in his mouth, and the barrel of a handgun pressing down on his shoulder.

 

It’s bitter — thick, musty, and Tim gags again and again as the man shoves in deeper, deeper. One of them, maybe the smart one, is kneeling on his calves and holding his wrists tight together, pushing his head forward as though he likes it, wants it.

 

He squeezes his eyes shut and then opens them; he should remember their faces, he thinks, even through the frantic haze of terror and humiliation settling over him, which makes everything move slowly, like a dream. The one who’s fucking his face pumps in once, twice more, and then Tim feels his heavy shaft twitch on his tongue. A gush of hot fluid floods the back of his throat, and he can’t breathe until he swallows, shuddering and sick.

 

He gets one gasp of breath before there’s another one shoving bluntly inside. Tim vaguely registers that he’s screaming, or approximating a scream as best he can; his throat feels raw where the thick liquid has lurched down.

 

There’s another, and he’s big and thick and he shoves in so deep Tim can barely breathe, can barely think; his vision is blackening at the edges even as he thrashes against the one behind him and then —

 

A sound explodes and doesn’t echo; all the dank half-rotten carpet and damp cardboard down here absorbs the remnants of the sound and then there’s another, another; the one in Tim’s throat withdraws and shoves him stumbling back; there is blood spray on his cheek.

 

For a moment Tim is simply stunned by the red patch spreading out in front of him, soaking into the spandex of his suit, and he turns his head to the side, dazed, and there is Jason, red helmet gleaming, holding the one he winged by his collar and saying  _ happy Halloween, motherfucker  _ before blasting the back of his cranium out. 

 

By the time Jason is finished, each of them is dead, even the intelligent one, the one with the big cock; all of them. Jason squeezes off a few extra rounds into each, kicks one of the bodies over, unzips, pisses on the corpse.

 

And then he turns to Tim.

 

“You ready to go?” 

 

\---

 

This must be Jason’s place: Not a safehouse, his bona fide  _ place.  _ It’s a dazzling penthouse in one of those downtown high-rises nobody can afford, decorated in a smooth, midcentury modern idiom, with a few eastern touches. 

 

Tim is enclosed in his generously sized shower stall, standing in a stream of steaming water. And he’s shivering anyway. 

 

Outside, Jason is on the phone. Tim’s icy blood seems to freeze in place when he entertains the grim notion that he’s talking to Bruce, who he’s not sure he’ll ever be able to face directly again. A painful beat passes and he hears Jason’s low hiss —

 

“Look,  _ I’m  _ not taking him back there, Dickface, so you can get here, or you can shut the fuck up.” 

 

Something conciliatory must be said on the other end of the line. Jason says: “Fine.” 

 

A moment later, the door of the shower stall swings open. Tim moves to cover himself with panicked modesty, and Jason knocks his hands out of the way. It wouldn’t make much sense, anyway; Jason is the one who stripped him, after all. 

 

“Are you okay?” Jason seems skeptical. Tim can’t blame him.

 

“I threw up,” he admits. 

 

“You puked in my shower?”

 

Tim looks down at the floor of the stall. Jason’s eyes follow his.

 

“It went down the drain,” he explains clumsily.

 

“Were there, like,  _ chunks _ ?” 

 

“No,” Tim says, distantly, neutrally. “It was just bile and cum.”

 

Jason blanches and stifles a gag. “Right, well.” He steps aside for a split second and returns with a bottle of mouthwash. “Rinse and spit.”

 

While Tim obeys, Jason surveys his body. Everything looks manageable except that nasty gash near his hip, still dribbling blood.

 

“I’m gonna have to stitch that,” he announces matter-of-factly, one hand on Tim’s shoulder, more to steady him and keep him from curling in on himself than to project any kind of comfort. 

 

“Okay,” Tim says simply.

 

“Otherwise, I think you’re gonna be alright.”

 

There’s reddish-purple bruising where his thighs meet his groin and Jason doesn’t even want to  _ contemplate  _ getting kneed so hard in the balls it left a bruise, but he can’t make sense of the injury any other way.  _ No wonder the kid’s puking,  _ he thinks. 

 

He spreads out a towel onto the tile and helps Tim lower himself down to his knees, shaking. “Easy there,” Jason mutters as he catches Tim’s shoulders, maneuvering him smoothly onto his back. And then: “Hang tight.”

 

Safehouses might get the cheap shit, but this is Jason’s  _ place,  _ and it’s where he keeps his premium medical supplies, all hospital-grade this and that plundered from clinics, ambulances, doctors he’s fucked. He snaps on a pair of latex gloves and kneels down, sopping up blood with gauze before splashing the wound with disinfectant.

 

Tim doesn’t even wince; he’s too out of it. Jason smears the gash with lidocaine anyhow, just in case he comes to his senses right in the middle of a stitch. When he starts suturing, Tim shivers just a little, and then stills, cadaverous. It makes Jason a little nauseous, a little furious.

 

_ Fuck Bruce. _

 

“Alright, buddy, you’re all closed up.” Jason gestures at helping him to his feet with an outstretched hand, but wins up gripping his elbow and then his shoulder and finally lifting him into his arms, bridal-style; there was no way Tim was walking out of there on his own and staying upright, and Jason isn’t gonna risk him shredding those stitches open on his carpet. 

 

He deposits Tim in his bed. It smells, Tim thinks, amazing; Jason’s aftershave and some expensive woody scent he can’t place. He burrows down into the blankets, which are pleasantly heavy.

 

“Here.” Jason sits on the edge of the bed. Tim hadn’t noticed he was gone. In his outstretched palm he holds a handful of pills, all indistinctly white and unmarked. “They’ll help with the pain,” he explains, “get you some sleep. Make you forget.”

 

“Make me forget?” His mouth tongue feels thick and dry.

 

“Yeah. It’s better. Trust me.” 

 

The rim of a glass is pressed to his lips. Tim swallows dutifully, and he is thinking of something else to say — there  _ has  _ to be gratitude in a situation like this, he decides numbly — but his senses gradually soften and then Jason is lowering him gently into the pillows, pulling the sheets up over his chest and shoulders, switching off the lamp on his way out.

 

\---

 

Sleep comes deep and easy. Now and then Tim rises just to the surface of his slumber and hears the conversation unfolding in the next room, glimpses the neon glitter of the skyline outside Jason’s vast plate glass window.

 

“Just let me talk to him,” Dick is saying soothingly, “Let me give it a try.”

 

“And say what, exactly?” Jason snaps. “Bruce, daddy, I’m just real  _ concerned  _ about how Timmy got throat-fucked by gangsters because —”

 

“—wasn’t Bruce’s  _ fault,  _ Jay, —”

 

“Please. You know how you keep your child soldiers from getting raped? You don’t use fuckin’ child soldiers.”

 

“Tim shouldn’t have been out there on his own, it was a mistake — just let me —”

 

Jason kicks something over, a chair or a bar stool, maybe the table. 

 

“Would you fucking listen to yourself?!”

 

“Jay, please — please. You’re gonna wake him up.”

 

“Not with what I gave him, I’m not.”

 

“What? Jason, what’d you give him?”

 

“Would you fucking knock it off with the big brother bullshit? It’s nothing. Codeine, naproxen, propranolol. It’ll get him through the night.”

 

There’s a quiet shuffle. They must be righting whatever Jason overturned, Tim thinks dimly, as he lapses back into deep sleep.

 

\---

 

_ This night is never going to end.  _

 

Tim shifts from one side to the other. It is still dark out. Dick and Jason are murmuring in the kitchen.

 

A sudden panic rises in him. What if they aren’t there at all? His head is swimming. Voices that low could easily be the whispers of his imagination. He is terrified, in that instant, of being alone.

 

Of being alone and of not knowing where he is; he doesn’t remember how Jason got him here, doesn’t know how he would get home if Jason has left. The trains won’t be running this late, and they would only get him to the northern edge of town, anyway. There may not be any cabs around, and he doesn’t have money on him — doesn’t know where his suit went, and his grappling gun is with it.

 

And he’s afraid — so afraid, cold sweat pooling at the base of his spine. He can’t think of anything to comfort him but the warmth of his own bed, far away from wherever he is right now, and Bruce just down the hall, because if Bruce had been there,  _ none  _ of this would’ve happened, and now Tim isn’t sure he can get home, if he’ll ever get home.

 

He sinks back into sleep.

 

\---

 

It is still dark out.

 

Tim turns away from the wall and gazes unfocused and bleary-eyed at the window, hoping to find some sign of dawn. But there are the city lights still sparkling, piercing the night high up into the mist, which gathers around them in a hazy glow. 

 

In front of his window Jason has placed a black lacquer credenza, sleek and modern, and earlier Tim thought he had glimpsed a couple of books on it, but now Jason is sitting on its surface and leaning back into the window, panting. His calves are around Dick’s waist, and Dick is threading his fingers into Jason’s hair, bringing their mouths together.

Dick whispers something. Tim can’t hear what.

 

Jason says: “Just fuck me.” 

 

Dick slides a hand under Jason’s knee and jerks him forward; Jason slings his arms around Dick’s neck, but then Dick’s hands are on his waist and he’s holding him still, whispering again, lips to his ear. 

 

“Fuck me, Dickie, please — please, just,” he sounds wrung out, desperate. 

 

Tim hears the low timbre of Dick’s voice but he can’t make out the words, except for “...just say it,” gentle and coaxing.

 

“Fuck,” Jason moans, and then sobs: “I love you. Love you, Dick. Love —”

 

And Dick swallows the needy sound Jason makes when he hitches his hips up and, Tim can only assume, pushes inside him. 

 

Gotham shimmers around them. The halo of fog that has formed on the cold glass around Jason’s hot skin makes him seem radiant, ethereal. Deep shadows fall over them and Tim can barely make out their silhouettes as he recedes again, comforted, somehow.

 

\---

 

They both help him down to Dick’s car when morning finally comes, grey and misty. Tim can stand, but his gait is unsteady; Jason dresses him in a pair of his sweatpants, thankfully gathered at the ankles, and an old long-sleeved t-shirt. Dick drapes his heavy Bludhaven PD jacket over his shoulders, and he doesn’t feel the sting of the cold except for at the raw corners of his mouth. 

 

Dick buckles his seatbelt for him and slides into the driver’s seat. Jason leans on his forearms in the rolled-down window.

 

“Stay outta trouble, alright, baby bird?” 

 

Tim realizes he must look a little deranged when he smiles. 

 

“Thanks, Jay.”

 

Jason just quirks a brow, and waves as Dick pulls out onto the street, and the window glides into place.

 

“Brr,” Dick huffs, turning every air conditioning knob to its highest setting, which initially means a blast of frigid air. Tim winces, and then relaxes little by little as the heating picks up.

 

“Give me a chance to talk to Bruce, okay?” Dick says softly, after a few long moments. He judiciously chooses to breach this subject while they’re on the road, not at a red light, so Tim won’t feel obligated to make eye contact.

 

“He’s going to be so pissed,” Tim mutters.

 

“He’ll be upset,” Dick agrees, “but not with you. Just — let me break it to him easy.”

 

Tim is silent for a solid stretch of road.

 

“What are you gonna say?” he asks at last, meekly.

 

Dick’s fingers flex on the steering wheel. There are three elements of this whole situation that threaten to send Bruce into a tailspin: First (and foremost) that Tim was sexually assaulted; second, that Jason killed everyone involved; third, that Jason then whisked Tim away to a penthouse uptown and texted Dick a couple hours later with directions to inform Bruce of his whereabouts, at which point Dick and Bruce had a screaming match on the phone as he sped to Jason’s place as to whether or not he should  _ bring Tim home right now.  _

 

None of them are exactly in the clear.

 

“I’m gonna tell him what happened — just the basics.” 

 

“Basics are pretty much all I remember,” Tim observes, surprised at how little he can recall. 

 

“Jason gave you something to...he gave you some medicine that…”

 

“Oh, yeah,” he recollects Jason saying something about that, but it’s fuzzy. “To make me forget.”

 

“Yeah.”

 

Tim is wordless again, spreading his hands out in front of the heater.

 

“Jason was really great,” he remarks softly.

 

“Jason is great,” Dick affirms, something he argues often, Tim imagines. 

 

“Yeah.” 

 

\---

 

Alfred lets them in, and ushers Tim upstairs. Dick stays down in the foyer, and Tim hears his voice carry as he’s locking his bedroom door behind him: “Hey, long time, no see.” 

 

Tim sleeps the whole day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks y'all for reading! please comment/let me know what you think. <3


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